POLTERGEIST (1982) ** There's been a great deal of speculation as to what extent Steven Spielberg (writer/producer) "helped" Tobe Hooper (credited director). Certainly the Spielberg markings can be found-the calculated explosions of action on a rotating five minute basis, the hints of sexuality leading almost up to the first line drawn by the censors, the contemplation of spiritual mysteries without saying much about them, cute kids and the adults who won't believe them-but it's all a bit transparent (or without distractions) for Spielberg's work and there's not enough encompassing warm sap. There's a framework for some non-lyrical symbolism and liberation metaphors: pot-smoking good mother struggles with husband who no longer has "an open mind" as he fills himself with propaganda about Ronald Reagan ("The Politician and the Man"), the fact that she naively welcomes unknown forces while he attacks them-neither to proper effect, the hints of the power of bonds sewn by kindred female spirits, the metaphysical implications of tennis balls...unfortunately all are left dangling, undeveloped, or undiscovered. The result is that the personae of young Heather O'Rourke is the only scary thing about the film, and the only one precipitous of pathos in meditation. The special effects are tremendous, but with stuff going off with such regularity they lack the punch of even your average spookhouse (there is, admittedly, one dunce-capped exception). The effects are also hindered in that...when you're already shaking your head in disbelief due to the ridiculous script, it's difficult to frighten you with more smoke, and afterbirth from some party shoppe in the San Fernando Valley. Better acting might have saved some of it, or giving more lines to O'Rourke and Zelda Rubinstein, or camping up the Craig T. Nelson/JoBeth Williams dichotomy: have him be a football coach preoccupied with the glory of the death penalty, she his aging wife falling for the philosophy teacher or a local guitarist, the kids suffering spectacular episodes of teenage alcohol abuse at functions honouring the unrepentent developers and businessmen who spiritually stripped the nation...might have got a little more out of them metaphors then.
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